2024-08-06 03:47:35
‘Lemon is a great opportunity for Huila.’ Carlos Torres Higuera, president of the Macizo Limones Association, said that Huila has great potential in the production and export of this citrus fruit. However, there is a need for industrialization in packaging, which allows producers to export directly and not through intermediaries.
HUILA DAILY, ECONOMY
By: Gustavo Patiño
Although Colombia is known worldwide as one of the largest banana producers in Latin America, in the last five years the country has seen an increase in the production of other fruits, the industry has been growing with more than 11 billion dollars in citrus fruits, such as the Tahiti lemon. Since 2019, this citrus has grown in the country by 500%, registering exports of 96 million dollars in 2023. In the department of Huila, as Carlo Torres Higuera, legal representative of the association of citrus producers and marketers Limones del Macizo, told Diario del Huila.
Great opportunity
According to Torres Higuera, lemon has great opportunities in the department of Huila, our territory has a series of microclimates that allow optimal development of this citrus, “the department of Huila has immense potential in the production of citrus and these can be an alternative to other crops, because coffee with climate change has been moving to higher climatic zones, because those where it has traditionally been planted are already very warm, so there are intermediate zones where citrus farming is done very well, so that gives us something additional or alternative in different properties and the microclimate here in the department of Huila is an excellent microclimate for citrus,” said the lemon producer.
You may be interested in: Investigators found the bodies of two new victims of ‘Satan’
In 19 municipalities
He assured that there are 60 producers in his association, distributed across 19 municipalities in the department, “we are a non-profit organization, created more than two years ago. We work strictly on the organic issue, we are organic producers, we have clean agriculture, we are all small producers with approximately 60 producers who have between 50 and 1,500 trees, it is an initiative that was born as a result of the fact that the commercial issue is very complex at a national level, so the need to organize ourselves and have that differential plus to all the conventional ones, which is being organic and being able to export to where the international markets are,” he added.
Exporting lemons
And in just two years of existence, this association has managed to strengthen itself and reach the European market. “We are exporting through a commercial ally called OTC Organic, from Holland, with whom we have been working on the certification and export issues. Last year we worked with a company that did the manufacturing here in the country, we had to take the fruit to La Unión, Valle del Cauca, and now we are also working with a company called Bioagroexport, which is the one that does the manufacturing for us there,” he said.
He added that in 2023 they did very well in terms of production and export, taking at least 198 thousand kilograms from small farms to the European market last year, “last year we took out approximately nine containers starting in May of last year and this year we started work again a month ago and we took four containers with the one we took out last week.”
Strict standards
Torres Higuera assured that the standards to be able to export to Europe are very strict, “we have around 150 hectares certified in organic production, this means that we have before the ICA the procedures for exporting property, which is what the regulations require in Colombia, we have a certification called Organic, through a certifying body called CERES, which has its offices in Germany, we have a certificate called Global Gap, we have a certificate called Naturland, which has to do with the environmental part, they have offices in Munich, Germany, and we are also certified with Grass.”
“These are certifications required by European regulations and right now we are getting certified in Bio Suite, in order to enter the Swiss market, so we will see if we can improve the price issue in Europe since the European market is very demanding in terms of fruit quality, which has made us improve day after day.”
Monitoring of inputs
These certifications develop monitoring and recommendations regarding the inputs used in the production processes, since many of the fertilizers and insecticides are prepared with petroleum. “We were working with a Spanish company on the subject of inputs and they have a list of products that are permitted. Right now we are certified with CERES, so there are many organic products that are exported at a national level, but they show traces for them. For example, in the matter of fertilizers, we can use some products that do not give us traces and another company can come and tell us, look, this product does not give traces, but we cannot use something that they do not patent.”
«For example, lemon is attacked a lot by mites and we are allowed to use a product called Cúmulos, which is a sulfur that is authorized for use, the certifying body gives us a list of products allowed in the European Union list, likewise they always try to handle the commercial issue, it’s like everything, but there are things that one can do, what we have done with Asofrucol, we buy the sulfur that they sell here in the country at 90% and we are preparing sulfocalcic broth that has already been patented and the European Union allowed it, so we no longer buy Cúmulos but we buy hydrated lime, sulfur and we prepare the sulfocalcic broth through a cooking process. »
Prepared
«There are also other products, some organic, that we can prepare and use, and this is something we have tried to do with Asofrucol. In the association we have set up a biofactory where we buy the supplies, make the biopreparations and distribute them among the members. They are also products that do not leave traces, because for example we have three sanctioned producers who were convinced by a person who told them to use this product that does not leave traces, so they are sanctioned and have been sanctioned for four months now because they were given phosphonic acid,” he said.
Technical table
The president of Limones del Macizo assured that what is missing in the department of Huila is the creation of a processing and packaging plant, since the export of lemons does not remain in Huila, but in the department where it is packaged, “I wish there was a departmental discussion table not only with the Limones del Macizo association, but with a lot of other people who are working in citrus farming in the department, a technical table that has the Governorate, Asofrucol, the producers, to see what we are going to do with the situation we are facing with lemon prices, we have a very tough national market situation, lemons are very cheap, which means that later on we will end up failing.”
A packing plant
«Let’s see what possibilities we have at the departmental level to find a solution to set up a packing plant here in the department of Huila, hopefully it will be multifunctional, that can serve avocados or other types of fruit apart from lemons or citrus, because the department does not have a plant of that type, if we analyze we see that in Tolima, Cundinamarca, Valle, Antioquia, Nariño, they all have their own packing and processing plants, so this also generates development for the department, generating jobs and there will be an index that a fruit comes out of here processed or packaged, that is, being able to present a project or that the National Government helps us set up a maquiladora or processing company,” he said, since many times the aid is in some implements, which become market lists.
“With the previous governorship, they gave us some equipment that we had requested for pruning, they gave us some very good backpack sprayers, they gave us pruning equipment with a pruning saw that is something very innovative, with batteries, they gave us some protective elements to do the phytosanitary work. So, that governor supported us a lot in that issue, but it is still something that I call a market list, they are very small investments because as we have small producers who have a lot of difficulty with the issue of support, because we cannot leave aside this whole issue of the productive part, that of fertilizers, then let us ask for such a thing, it becomes like a market list, but the biggest thing would be to manage to articulate the plant at the departmental level,” he concluded.